The Miraculous and the Everyday

Pin It Ever been witness to a miracle? Ever experienced one personally?

I mean a TRUE miracle. Not "the girls did their math without complaining," although at times that certainly feels like a miracle. Generally there is some explanation for that other than something only God can do.

I have.

Let me set the stage. Picture a really hot day, and you're in a car with three children. One is 7, one is 4, one is three weeks old. You're recovering from surgery and haven't even been released to drive yet. Your car contains a significant portion of the material things that matter to you. Your car does not, however, contain food or water. Your car is moving approximately 2.7 miles per hour, and your drive on an ordinary day takes 2 1/2 hours. You have money in your pocket, but can't find a single place open to buy food and water. Because of the food/water situation, and because of the extreme heat, you don't want to turn the air conditioner off because when five hours into the trip, you're less than 20 miles from where you started, you know it's going to be a loooooong trip. Oh, and twelve hours into the trip, let's add throwing up by the 4 year old, and thirteen hours into the trip, let's let the 7 year old join in.

All of this awful stuff ... what is your biggest fear?

I'll tell you what mine was. It wasn't the hurricane we were running away from. It wasn't that we would starve to death or never make it to our destination. When the phone would ring, what I asked people to pray, the one gauge that I watched most closely ...

My biggest fear was running out of gas.

I received a miracle that day. We did arrive safely at our destination, eighteen hours after leaving our house. We got the kids fed and hydrated, and everyone was fine.

The miracle? Eighteen hours in a car with the air condition on the entire time ... and we arrived with half a tank of gas left. Physically not possible. God heard the prayers and did it. Not a single question in my mind about it.

Another miracle ... Troy has been released from the hospital. The funeral we were all planning is postponed, hopefully for many MANY years. The recovery is not yet complete, but there is every hope that there will be a complete recovery. Amazing.

Wow.

WOW!!

I think this is where it tends to get a little weird though. We want to explain away the miraculous. Well, because the car wasn't actually MOVING most of that time, it used less gas. It's amazing the advances made in the medical field these days.

I've been reading two different blogs for quite a while now; they're both over there on the sidebar. Both have posted recently about miracles and how sometimes you have to really just recognize the miracle in things that to the outside world don't look so miraculous. Both are more eloquent writers than I am, so I’ll just link their posts here.
Bring the Rain - Miracle
My Charming Kids - No Matter What
(btw - both of these are FABULOUS blogs, and both of these families are in need of prayer. If you're not already reading these blogs, you'll be blessed to add them to your blog list.)

My prayer now for my brother and his family is that they would recognize the miracle. I don’t know why some receive their miracle answer and some don’t, or why the miracle looks so different for some than it does for others. I don’t think it’s possible to look a miracle in the face and come away unchanged, if the miracle is recognized for what it is, rather than explaining it away. Pray with me that this miracle is acknowledged, proclaimed even! Pray with me that lives are changed because God chose to answer prayers in this manner.

To God be the glory, great things He has done.

I'm too old to have pink hair

Pin It So now you know. 39 is too old for pink hair.

At least according to TROY, it is. Yep, that's what he told me on the phone just now!

YES!! I just talked to him on the phone!

He knew exactly who I was and told me all of the different colors he's had in his hair the last few years.

In case you're considering a change in your own hair color - 37 is NOT too old for pink hair. 39, evidently, is. Keep that straight, okay?

Seriously - it was so amazing to talk to him on the phone. He had me giggling through the conversation and then just crying in amazement.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Hi/Lo Thursday

Pin It (Troy update is below this post, in case you missed it.)

This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts and get your link on their site.

High for the week:
Obviously it's the improvement seen in Troy. I was seriously expecting that we were going to be attending a funeral this week, and I am over the moon elated at the improvements that have been made. I had a conversation with a friend yesterday who has been feeling distant from God, but saw her prayers answered in Troy's improvement. Awesome!! I know recovery is a long road and there are plenty of milestones still to make, but praise God for HOPE!!

Low for the week:
This one is pretty obvious as well. Husband gone for ten months is going to be tough to deal with. I think the low point will actually be tomorrow, when we have to tell the girls. I have been so blessed with so many people who have offered to help out in any way they can ... maybe prayers that I will be able to ask for help when I need it would be a good thing.

So there ya go ... hi/lo Thursday!

Dad, go take a walk

Pin It update: He's moving from ICU into a room!

Troy told Dad to go take a walk. Well, we've all probably wanted to tell him that at one time or another. ;) This is significant though - he recognizes my parents for sure.

Today's update is better than yesterday's. He's awake again and talking, although the things he's talking about are kind of out there.

He is drinking some and seems to be doing well with that.

All in all, a good update.

Delayed update, sorry

Pin It I talked to my dad at about lunchtime, after they had spoken with the doctors.

The agitation that Troy was experiencing earlier this morning is apparently par for the course. They're still very pleased with his progress and have said that this is a long road which will be filled with ups and downs.

The good news: he swallowed a pill. His motor function seems to be as it should be.

The bad news: there is some definite brain damage, the extent of which cannot be determined at this time.

The heart damage and the cause of the strokes are assumed to be a side effect of the infections he's had through the years. They're not sure yet how treating that and prevention of future problems is going to work.

I'm still thrilled that there is talk of preventing future problems!

Mom and dad enjoyed a visit with their grandsons earlier today. (Troy's three boys.)

On a completely unrelated note: My children don't know yet that their father will be leaving in June. I intend to have Jim spend some time with them Friday and let them know. Please if your children are friends with mine, don't share this with them yet. I'm sure that's a complete non-issue, but I thought I'd put it out there just in case. Thank you for understanding.

We're on the Rollercoaster

Pin It I just talked to my dad. Last night and this morning have not been as good as yesterday afternoon. Troy has not been coherent, and appears to be in pain. He has been completely free of pain medicine the last couple of days. He's been on heavy duty pain medicine ever since the amputation ... five years or so, so at least in my (admittedly very non-medical) mind, it makes sense that if he's without it completely, he's experiencing some pain. I believe the plan is to revisit the need for pain medicine.

He is still breathing sufficiently on his own, so that's a very good sign.

The neurologist and cardiologist are deciding what to do next. There is a possibility that given the improvements over the last couple of days, the thought of surgery on the aneurysm could be reconsidered. I think there are a lot of other factors to consider there though, so it's a wait and see thing.

Who wants to PRAISE THE LORD with me?

Pin It Troy is awake.

Troy is TALKING.

TROY IS BREATHING!!!

Nothing else I can add to that, except PRAISE GOD!!

The Life I Didn't Want

Pin It This is not a post about Troy. The last few posts have been though, and you can scroll down for an update from today.

This is a post about me.

When I first met Jim, he was in the army. Problem. I did not want to be an army wife. Think badly of me for that if you will. It's just that my life's plan did not include being a single mom for months at a time, nor did it include moving around a whole lot.

Jim was on his way out of the army right about then, so I put my "I don't want to be an army wife" whining behind me and assumed it was a non-issue.

And it was, until last summer, when he pops up one day and says he would like to rejoin the national guard.

Again, I assumed this was a non-issue.

Guess that wasn't exactly the case. He rejoined last fall. Ironically - that's what he was doing while we packed and loaded up for Hurricane Ike. (In case you're wondering how this is ironic, read further.)

You been there, done that people know this, but it was news to me. What you're told by the Army may or may not be how things actually happen. Like if you're told you won't be deployed for at least a year, all bets are off once you've signed.

Jim thinks "definitely deployed" is a phrase that he mentioned to me before signing up. I don't know if he mentioned this silently or if I just wasn't listening, but I seriously have no memory of this. Since that date, I've been holding on to "possibly deployed", and really holding on to "most likely NOT deployed." About a month or so, the "definitely deployed" has become a reality, and that "not for a year" has come to mean "whenever the heck we decide we'd like for you to go, no matter what we told you."

(sorry, I really AM trying to keep my sarcastic fingers from excessive commenting here ... although it probably doesn't sound like it when I read over what I wrote.)

So, fast forward from September to February. We get a call saying that they'd like him to deploy to Afghanistan in April. Like two months from the date of the call April. Um, no, we have a "get out of deployment free" card until at least September! Well, maybe not so much. They DID decide that he didn't have to go in April, or at least that's what we were told.

(As an aside here ... Jim LOVES the army. Absolutely loves it. It's hard to begrudge him this because he really loves it that much. I'm managing to do it anyway though.)

So since the call in February, the deployment issue has been hanging over us. My one prayer has been that we could make it through another hurricane season without him being gone. I've done too many hurricane evacs on my own and decided I was done with that. My decision was that next time he would evacuate with us and take the dog in his truck, even if he had to turn around and come right back (which he would.) In case you're wondering, yes I do pretty much plan my life around hurricane evacuations.

So today Jim comes home and says "I got the call." He's leaving in June to go to Afghanistan. This is the same thing as the April deployment, he's just going to miss out on the two months of training that everyone else is doing. (Is it just me, or wouldn't you think he'd need that?) The original deployment was twelve months - two in training and ten actually in Afghanistan. Since he's going to miss the training, his deployment will only be ten months. (ONLY?!?)

So here I am, in the midst of the life I didn't want. I don't want to be a single parent, even for ten months. Neither did I want to be an army wife. Allow me to stamp my feet for just a moment, this was NOT MY PLAN. I do not LIKE this plan. I like going to the gym and being able to go to bed early and having someone else put the kids in bed. I like having a break without having to lock the bathroom door and watch the kids slide notes under it. I do not like this, not one little bit.

Today, though, I'm calm. Maybe I've been expecting this, maybe I'm exhausted, maybe there are just too many other thoughts rolling around in my head. Who knows. I don't know what Jim expected when he told me, but I'm betting he's puzzled at my reaction, because I didn't have one.

So there's the other thing that's going on in my life right now. A lot of you have known this was coming, well, it's here now. I'm certain the Lord will give me the grace to handle it, and in the areas where I can't handle it, I'm certain He will give me the friends to carry me through it.

**disclaimer -- this is not to say that I don't reserve the right to have a total fit about this at a later date. I'm just not feeling very "fitty" today.

Monday update

Pin It Good news and bad news.

The good news - he's opening his eyes some and appears to be looking around. He is still responding to some verbal commands.

The bad news - the respirator was turned down some and he could not handle that. He appears to be completely unable to breathe on his own at this time.

Mom and dad will be back up there tomorrow.

Maybe some hope?!

Pin It Evidently a nurse went to Troy this afternoon or this morning and told him to squeeze her hand.

HE DID.

This is the most hopeful information we've had. No idea what it really means, except that there is some cognition there.

I believe the plan is to try again to remove the respirator and reduce the sedatives towards the first part of the week, and see what happens.

Mom and Dad will be back up there Tuesday night.

There is not much to update

Pin It My parents are home and are going back to Missouri on Tuesday. I've considered going with them, or Jim and the kids and I are thinking of going up ... or I don't know.

The news is bad, he's not going to get better.

I've been thinking about silly things -- like coming home to the lakehouse in Trinity and finding all of my pictures or stuffed animals upside down and knowing that Troy had come to visit. Or having mom and dad ask him where he wanted to go to eat on his birthday, and knowing that he would think and think about it, and we'd end up at McDonald's. The Centrifuge camp nametag he had - YORT rather than Troy. The dripping water sound ... Howie Mandel (and his Bobby voice) ... Flash/Muffin ... okay, well, I guess you had to be there to really get all of these. (I really need to share the Flash/Muffin story.)

Troy and I are about the same difference in age as Gabbi and Madelyn. I don't remember us fighting as much as they do, but we probably did.

This is really hard.

11:00 am Friday

Pin It *note - update from Jennifer, not my parents

Jen talked to dad this morning. The respirator was restarted last night, and the pain medication as well. It is assumed that the jerking motions he was having were from pain. He seems more comfortable now.

I'm a little confused about this; but Jen said he had kind of woken up somewhat, at least opened his eyes, when he was not on pain meds. He did not seem to recognize anyone, but he may have responded somewhat in recognition of my dad's voice.

My parents are going to hear from the doctor and then head back to Trinity today. I believe my mom is planning to go back.

I'll update again when I hear from my parents.

8:00 pm Thursday

Pin It Finally talked to mom and dad.

The breathing tube has been removed and the paralytics have been stopped. He IS breathing on his own, but my dad says he's breathing badly. There has been some talk of replacing the breathing tube if his breathing doesn't get better.

The really scary part is that he hasn't woken up at all. Apparently within 24 hours of having paralytics stopped, a person should wake up. He has not at all. He needs to wake up to be assessed. This is directly related to the stroke, and so there's really no way of knowing at this point whether he will wake up or not. All other issues are under control.

Please, please pray that he will show some signs of waking up, and quickly.

3 pm Thursday update

Pin It I've still not talked to mom and dad.

Mom and I have texted a few times. The MRI did not go well, and the most recent text says there is no good news, that he is not responding or even waking up. They're going back again at 5:00. I'm going to assume this means that the paralytics have been stopped or at least reduced.

I'm just waiting to hear from them and will update as I have news.

Thank you for your prayers.

My brother Troy, what happened and the updates

Pin It Since I've gotten messages on facebook, emails, phone calls and IM's from family and friends asking what happened, I'll put it all here and add updates as I get them from my parents.

As to what happened to start with, all the info I have is that he had a stroke. We were told that it's likely this isn't the first one. He's currently in ICU in a hospital in Springfield, and my parents are with him.

There is definitely some heart and brain damage from this, but the extent of that is unknown at this time.

As of Tuesday, there was a blood clot in his lungs and medication was being given to treat that.

Evidently there is an aneurysm in his brain that has caused the strokes. As of the info I was given on Tuesday, this was believed to be inoperable. I'm really not sure if it was permanently inoperable, or if other situations needed to be resolved before surgery could be considered.

He was currently on a respirator and paralytics to keep him from fighting the respirator. Yesterday my dad said that Troy's doctors were going to try to lower the medications and wake him up a little, but then came back to say that they wanted to do another MRI to check on the aneurysm first. I think it was about 1:00 when I talked to him. I did not hear back from them yesterday, so I don't know what that means. I know ICU visiting hours are weird, so I opted not to call in case they were taking a few minutes to get some sleep.

The one thing my dad said yesterday was that the doctor told him that the next 48 hours were crucial and would answer a lot of questions.

I'm expecting a call from them soon, but if I don't hear something in the next hour or so, I'll give them a call.

I'll continue to post updates here on my blog as I get them.

Thank you guys for loving us and for praying for us. Please continue to do so. Please pray for Troy's sons too. They need their father.

My Brother

Pin It My brother is in desperate need of prayer. He is critically ill, in ICU in Springfield, MO. My parents are currently with him.

Please pray for him, my parents, and his children.

Thank you.

Not Me Monday!

Pin It

Monday again? Already??

It does NOT seem like Spring Break just FLEW by. Especially considering how yucky the weather was most of the week, and how from the middle of the week on, we pretty much stayed home out of the rain. I'm not sitting here right now wishing for a do-over!

We had great intentions of getting extra math done this week. We did not, therefore, decide after ONE DAY that it would be preferable to just have a spring break and not care if we have to relearn some math. We're right on the edge of REALLY getting it, so I'd never jeopardize that by saying "you know what? This is too much hassle, put it up and we'll start again next week." Math is way too important to me for me to say that. :-/

And while we're on the math topic, it wasn't me who told my oldest child that she only had to do half of her problems if she'd let me video her singing. It is also not me who can't figure out how to share that video because the file is ENORMOUS.

As I mentioned before, the festival was in town during spring break. My two younger ones got to spend one night and half of another night at the festival. I'm not upset at having spent more for the passport necklaces than I would have spent on tickets. I'm not kind of hoping for a do-over of that too. It's supposed to be much prettier this next week! I was not even once tempted to take my sweet children out in the cold rain just so I could get my money's worth! Nope, not me~!!

I have not observed that any break from school requires extra time for me to recoup. For example - Three days for Thanksgiving requires until New Year's to recover and be back in a school groove. Spring break requires until ... um ... about Easter to recover, and of course we take a break then too. I am not currently adding up all these breaks, plus a couple of hurricane evacs and realizing that we're going to have to kick it into high gear if we want to have a good summer break. I'm not both excited and stressed about that. (I am, however, very thankful to have children who are good sports, and are willing to buckle down and get to work when they know they have to.)

Just a couple more ... it wasn't me who left a WEIGHT LOSS MEETING and went in search of leftover cake. Definitely not me. I'd never do something like that. (FWIW, I didn't find any.) It was also not me who had co-op stuff to do and yet sat around playing on facebook rather than getting the work done. Nope, not me.

The cheapskate in me ...

Pin It The cheapskate in me is at war with the relief in me that it's raining right now. See, we bought these passports for The Heritage Festival for our kids. Three kids, $45 each. These passports allow them to ride the carnival rides all week. It really is a good deal, unless you can only get up there one or two nights. We went on Tuesday night, along with every single other person who lives in a 30 mile radius. We went for a little while on Wednesday night, until one member of the family started exhibiting the signs of a meltdown on the way. Brendan, Madelyn, and Jim were acting kind of worn out too. :-P (Gabbi is currently residing at the Smith's house ... I did get to visit with her for a little while today though. Hopefully she'll be back tonight, I'm missing her!) Then Thursday it was cold and rainy. Friday, cold and rainy. Saturday, cold and rainy. A part of me really is screaming out "I PAID $135 FOR THESE PASSPORTS! WE'RE GONNA USE THEM EVEN IF WE ALL END UP SICK FROM THE COLD AND RAIN!!" The more practical side of me is saying "um, we don't like cold and rain. We could suffer through cold, but not cold and rain." So it probably really is a good thing that it's raining because otherwise I would likely be dragging us all out there tonight to get our money's worth.

The little ones and I did go participate in the parade this morning. Nothing says "small town" like a parade! Really, I love parades. Unfortunately though, it was about 45 degrees when the parade started, so there were very few people to actually watch the parade. I'm going to guess that more people were on floats than actually watching.



Don't we look like a loving family? We're just missing Jim, who had drill this weekend. Oh, and for those of you who just WISH it would warm up to 45 degrees where you live ... I'll just let you know that 45 degrees is really really cold for here!! I would actually call it "freezing butt cold." Especially if your butt is on a very nice wooden bench in a trailer riding down the road with the wind blowing.

Serious Life Magazine

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Or:

Serious.Life Magazine

It's Monday!

Pin It

Time for a little not me!

I did not spend the first day of Spring Break watching my children cram one hour of math into four. Oh yeah, I'm also not making my children do school work during Spring Break. We all need a break, right? It would just be wrong to make those precious little darlings do work during their break, right? For the record, I DID tell them we'd be taking it easy this week. Completely not my fault that they both had an attack of the whimper and whines today and decided it would be better to whine about their work and drag it out over just sitting down and getting it over with. Glad this all didn't happen here this morning!

My house is not desperately in need of spring cleaning while I sit here and type away. I've not been sitting here trying to come up with incentives to get my children to do the work for me. I'm not that lazy! Nope, not me.

I'm not really enjoying the silence right now while my sweet son takes a nap. I've not observed that boys are ... how shall I put this nicely? ... TONS LOUDER than girls. This child who, as a baby, had a very quiet little cry cannot currently BREAK GLASS with his screeches and screams. I do not continually marvel at the vast differences between this boy and his sisters. (Speaking of which - neither of the girls could scream loudly enough to make me want to cry, and yet, he can. He screams like a girl better than either of my girls can.)

Okay, since I DON'T have a ton of laundry to do and some plants to plant (that I'm sure my dog will NOT dig right back up!) I should probably close this now. :)

A mini-breakthrough? Maybe?

Pin It From my Bible study ... um, a couple of days ago. (It always works like that for me -- delayed reaction!)

Isaiah 43:18-19

18 "Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.

hm ... could it be that this potential adjustment that I'm having such a hard time with IS NOT simply a colossal error in judgment, but rather God's plan? Maybe He really is doing a new thing here, and this really is His leadership in action. Maybe?

This has gone no further than that in my thoughts, but just that is a pretty major breakthrough. :)

A direct result of prayer, I believe. Thank you all so much.

As an aside ... remember those Scripture memory CD's and tapes from long ago? I have no idea if they're still made. These verses were on one of those and I memorized them, in song, AGES ago - seriously probably 20 years. Since I read the verses in my Bible study, that song has been rolling around in my head. Two or three days later, the words kind of sunk in. Amazing the way He can use words planted in our minds, 20 years later.

Hi/Lo Thursday

Pin It This post is part of "Hi/Lo Thursday" on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else's "Hi/Lo" posts and get your link on their site.

Highs and Lows for the week:

Highs:
Having a fabulous conversation with my oldest after witnessing some particularly bad behavior on her part. I won't get into the whole story here, but she was ugly to her friend and I was a witness to it. We dealt with the behavior quickly but weren't able to really get down to the depth of what was going on until several days later. I love conversations when kids just bare their hearts. Seeing what was really going on in her heart and head was a blessing to me.

Another high ... the way my friends have responded to a prayer need I have. I am so blessed, Lord help me to remember that.

Another ... seeing the Lord just work out getting Gabbi to the right doctor. Her appointment is the 13th with a doctor whose very area of speciality is exactly what we need!

And one more ... we were expecting my nephew to be coming over tonight to spend the night so he can take his ACT tomorrow. I found out last night that not only will he be coming, my mom will too! She will get to spend the day with us on Friday. I'm so excited to just have some free time to spend with my mom. :)

Lows for the week:
The main one would have to go to me. I'm trying to adjust to some things, and my behavior has been pretty close to appalling. Most things in my life have really been simple things to deal with. This one really hasn't because apparently there are various layers to it. I deal with one area and think "okay, now I can move on" and something else pops up. I'm hurt, I'm angry, and I'm acting like a child trying to deal with it. (I'm just realizing as I type this, that those of you know know me very well will probably wonder which of the two major things going on in my life right now this applies to ... well, I started out talking about one of them, but it all really applies to both. Funny how that works.) Anyway ... I know that sometimes the Lord fixes problems instantly, and sometimes He wants us to rely on His grace daily to deal with them. Right now, with both of these situations, I'm in the "rely on His grace daily" category, which a few days this week has been more like "I'd rather just have a temper tantrum instead." Just pray for me, I'm in need.

(And that really is WAY more than I intended to put out there! I guess if I've already posted the length of my menstrual cycle, posting that I'm really struggling isn't too too personal, right?)

Playing around

Pin It Okay, so I'm still learning how to use my camera. I suspect this is going to be a life long project! Well, to add to that, I was forced against my will to switch from Digital Image Pro to Photoshop Elements for my photo editing. I've used DIP enough to be good at it and even though it's not made any longer, I didn't want to let it go. Then I got a new computer and can't find the CD to put DIP on it. So ... PSE it is. I assumed they would be similar and it would be an easy adjustment. Um, no. Not so much. I'll end up glad I made the switch, because digiscrappers aren't doing a whole lot for DIP any longer, but everyone is designing things that work in PSE. It the meantime though, I have a few bald spots where I've pulled out my hair in the past few days.

So ... here's what I've been playing with today. Lightening eyes. Let me tell ya - blue eyes are easy, green eyes are easy. Dark brown eyes are not. It's almost like perms - almost right ... not quite right ... WRONG~!! I think I have the technique down though, so that's worth something. :)

Pics --
before:


after:


Cool eye shining, huh? Yeah yeah, I probably still overdid it ... but it's way better than my FIRST attempt, which isn't even shareworthy unless you've seen bigger messes I've made than that. :-P (btw ... somehow the edit is lighter on here than it really is. Not sure why that is!)

More playing around, this time with the camera. I've been playing with the manual controls some and wanted this picture. Woot for finally get it just like I wanted it.

Of course I tried the "other half" of this - focusing on her and leaving the flowers out of focus and I couldn't make it work. I think maybe if she just had one or two flowers, but my focus kept going to the flowers rather than the child.

(As an aside ... see blogger? This is why I'm cheating on you with facebook! It took about five minutes to upload those pictures and you did NOT upload them in the same order I chose!)

I was playing with color on the picture of Madelyn and gave up after realizing that I was going to have to color every stem individually, and some of the flowers too to make just the flowers have color. Maybe if I get an extra hour or seven sometime.

Anyway ... nothing earth shattering in this post, just wanted to share the results of an afternoon of playing with my camera and photoshop.

Where did the pictures go?

Pin It Just wanted to let you know, I'm putting all of my project 300-something pictures on facebook now. Blogger just irritates me because it doesn't put my pictures in the order I want them so then I have to go in and rearrange them, and facebook makes it just so much easier.

I've done pretty well keeping up. I prefer pictures with faces in them, but then again, it's good to have pics of various things we did to kind of look back on. Maybe I'll start really getting in the habit of photojournaling just in case a family member happens to be out of town for a year and would like to see what his family did while he was gone.

So ... if you want to see my project 300-something pics, come join me on facebook.

How about a little NOT ME Monday?

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Woohoo, it's Monday.

It is not me who has the remaining weeks of co-op all added up and ready to count down. I love co-op and will be sad when it ends for the year. We are not at all behind on school due to a couple of hurricane evacs last year plus some sick days and a Christmas break that somehow stretched a little further than it was supposed to. We do not need those extra Monday mornings to cram in some extra work to get us caught up. We are not at all in danger of HAVING to do schoolwork over the summer to get caught up. (Yep, it's one thing to do school work to drag them away from the TV, another thing altogether to HAVE to do it!)

I know we've been there before, so by this point, I should not have to tell you that I'm not a last minute person. Because of that, I am not out of proportionately happy to have completed preparations for co-op today by yesterday afternoon. Like I've said, I never procrastinate, so it was not a huge deal to not be dragging in from AWANAs and rushing through to prepare co-op stuff! (Okay, in all seriousness - I do really enjoy co-op and really will miss it when it's done. This time of year just seems to take on a life of its own though, and I'm starting to feel like I need to tie a rope around my hands and just hang on for the ride!) (Oh, and if you're one of the people who is NOT counting down either, I won't tell you that there are seven regular classes and the open house date left.)

I did not this last week feel yucky one day and just take off from my life. I did not pass the kids off to Jim for the explicit purpose of sitting in a quiet house for a few hours. I did not, at this time, manage to forget an important meeting I had been planning to attend, and feel like an awful person for missing it. :( I'm not still mad at myself about it. :(

I also did not, this week, make some really crazy choices. I did not compare a banana and a piece of chocolate and choose the chocolate because it had fewer calories. How much sense would that make? I did not use the aforementioned feeling yucky excuse to compare chocolate to a MEAL and choose the chocolate, either. I know about nutrition and just wouldn't do that. Chocolate does not have that kind of hold over me. Or maybe it does, just a little, every now and then. Like two or three of every 28 days. (Or 25 in my case, which is totally not fair ... but is probably a bit of an overshare for a public blog!)

Okay, I'm not blushing right now.

I have not observed this week that my house can go from just fine to a disaster area in a matter of 2.7 seconds. Why on earth is this? Seriously - I typically clean the three hot spots before going to bed - kitchen, family room, living room. It just makes for a happier day all around if I wake up to no dishes in the sink. I did not do this every day last week and then wake up to a mess the next morning. I am not beginning to look at the cats suspiciously because of this, because I KNOW it's not my eyes that are tired and think things are clean when I go to bed and they're really not.

And one more ... My seven year old daughter ... sweet thang that she is ... did NOT look at me last night and say "huh. I like your hair like that, Mom. It makes you look young again." Um, YOUNG? AGAIN?!? Does that mean that I usually look OLD? Okay, she's SEVEN. Did I just suddenly age in the couple of years that she can actually remember and now I look young again? And another thing ... I got up Sunday with wild hair and cold feet and didn't want to take a shower, so I flattened my hair. My dirty hair, because I didn't want to look completely recycled. So ... if this HAD happened, what have we learned here? Fresh, clean, fluffy hair = old. Recycled, flat ironed, dirty hair = young again. Good to know. But I'm glad that didn't happen because I'm not sure how I would have taken my daughter telling me that I look young again.

Well ... there are more I'm sure ... but I'm going to end it here for now. :) I really want to know what YOU didn't do this week!